Heightened tension in Kashmir and
evidence of a Chinese military presence on the Tajik and Afghan side of their
border with China’s troubled north-western province of Xinjiang are putting on
display contradictions between the lofty principles of the People’s Republic’s
foreign and defense policies and realities on the ground.

The escalating tension between
Pakistan and India puts to the test what Pakistan and China tout as an
“all-weather friendship.” The test will likely occur when the Financial Action
Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance
watchdog, debates an Indian demand that the South Asian nation, already
grey-listed, be put on the organization’s black list.

China, however, despite refusing to prevent FATF
from grey-listing Pakistan last year,
will find it increasingly difficult to defend its shielding of Pakistan in the
United Nations and could be caught in the crossfire as it continues to protect
Masood Azhar, the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, the group believed responsible
for the Kashmir attack.

Question marks about China’s approach
to the countering of political violence and militancy also reflect on China’s
justification of its brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.

Concern that militant Uyghurs, the
predominant Turkic Muslim minority in Xinjiang, including foreign fighters
exfiltrating Syria and Iraq, could use Central Asia as an operational base has
prompted China to violate its declared principle of not wanting to establish
foreign military bases.

China has been believed to be involved
for several years in cross-border operations in Tajikistan and Afghanistan’s
Wakhan Corridor, both of which border on Xinjiang.

Evidence of the long-reported but
officially denied Chinese military presence in Tajikistan comes on the back of
China’s increasing effort to put in place building blocks that enable it to
assert what it perceives as its territorial rights as well as safeguard Xinjiang
and protect its mushrooming Diaspora community and overseas investments that
are part of its Belt and Road initiative.

Potentially, China’s military
expansion into Central Asia could complicate relations with Russia that sees
the Eurasian heartland, once part of the Soviet Union, as its backyard.
Continued expansion would call into question a seeming Chinese-Russian division
of labour that amounted to Russian muscle and Chinese funding.